Lie Low

1.

Even the sunlight's older here, faded and cooled with dawn; the floorboards feel odd under his human feet, and his skin is too thin, too sensitive. So long as a dog, and he's almost forgotten - this muted scent of dust, of Remus, of books lining the creaking shelves.

"You haven't eaten," are Remus' first words to him, and Sirius looks down at himself - sees only that unfamiliar distance between nose and ground, the dirty robes he's travelled in.

"No," he answers, and Remus is off to the kitchen before Sirius can stop him - because he'd wanted to touch Remus' shoulder, his face - because, as much as Sirius needs the food, there's something else he's hungry for.

2.

He touches Remus later. In the bathroom, when Remus finishes bandaging his cuts; he reaches out and sees Remus' eyes widen, sees Remus take a not-step back, and continues anyway. Don't you understand, Sirius wants to say to him, this is old territory, I have to know it again - but maybe Remus does understand, because he doesn't stir, doesn't take a breath when Sirius touches him.

Remus' face is rough under days-old stubble. Silk-rough, tougher than it used to be; Sirius strokes over it, over Remus' eyebrows which feather softly under his fingers, to Remus' nose, to his mouth, a little dry and a little chapped, not like silk at all.

3.

"It's an Owl from Harry." Remus smiles and opens it - raises an eyebrow barely a moment later. "Snuffles?"

"Oh." Sirius swallows his tea. "Codename. Padfoot's dangerous now that - " And then he stops, suddenly, because he almost said Peter's name.

"I'll fetch us more tea," Remus says quickly, mouth tight, and leaves for the kitchen again - and Sirius starts wondering when Remus turned into an old maid, hovering about the stove to avoid a real conversation. They haven't talked about anything - about James, about Lily, about - Peter - although it's probably better not to talk about that last, unless Sirius wants to start foaming at the mouth again.

4.

He watches Remus that night. It's raining outside, and Remus is asleep with the sheets almost completely covering him - only a foot and an ankle visible from his angle, in the moonlight on their bed.

No. No longer their bed.

Sirius stands by the door and breathes quietly, his pulse strangely calm - and realises that it's Moony's left ankle he's staring at, because it's the one with that cursive, curling scar. (Slytherin, Sirius used to tease him.) Sirius listens to the rain and thinks about how he'd fucked Remus here, right here, night after night after night - he thinks about the way Remus curved against him, gasped against him, and only fell asleep at dawn.

5.

They aren't strangers anymore. Not quite. Sirius remembers that first embrace, now, and understands it for what it was - the memories of each other, that's what they were embracing, but twelve years have changed them both. Sirius doesn't have the right to feel angry about it, doesn't have the right to wonder if someone else visited Remus here, if someone else pressed him against that door and fucked him, if someone else drank from that mug the next day. Sirius was a dead man, is a dead man, and dead men have no lovers.

He doesn't break any glasses, like he did when he and Remus used to fight before. Instead he turns himself into Padfoot again, feet into paws and nose into snout - and Remus doesn't stop him when he goes out for a hunt, a hunt in the cold, clear morning. The ground is too near, here, and the scents too sharp - and there's nothing in the sunlight, nothing of Remus at all.

fin.